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Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, Trenton and Princeton, Saratoga, Yorktown – the
stuff of legend, THE American Revolution as we learn it. George Washington, Israel
Putnam, Henry Knox and Horatio Gates are just a few of the legendary heroes who gained
their fame battling the British to a stalemate in the northern colonies of England’s
American Empire. But wait! General Gates forced the British surrender at Saratoga in
1777, and General Washington forced a surrenderat Yorktown in 1781. What happened in
between, from 1778 to 1781?
Who are the heroes of those years, and where did they fight? How did they force the British
to retreat to Yorktown, and to eventually accept such a humiliating defeat in this war for
American independence? This is an introduction to that story.
The capture of General Burgoyne’s army at Saratoga and the resulting Continental-French
alliance forced the English high command to come up with a new plan that would allow
them towin the war quickly, with as much of their American colonial empire intact as
possible. Believingthere were huge numbers of Loyalists in the South who would join the
fight against the “rebels”, Britons switched their focus in 1778 to securing control of
Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. These colonies were the source of many of
the raw materials needed to supply the powerful British navy, and to ensure the well being
of their Caribbean sources for sugar, molasses and rum. If things went well the British
could use North Carolina as a base of operations against the northern colonies; if “rebel”
resistance was greater than expected as the British entered Virginia they could “trade”
northern colonies their independence for an end to the war, with England keeping control
of Georgia and the Carolinas. Political and economic pressure to end the war continued to
escalate in England; political and economic pressure on the Continental Congress also
suggested that Americans were desperate to find some way to end the war. Diplomatic
hints from the French implied that they would accept that sort of compromise between the
Continentals and England.
It seemed a very good plan to the British high command as they began to implement it,
and it started out well. In December, 1778, British forces captured Savannah, Georgia; a
month later they took control of Augusta, GA, without any significant fight from the rebels.
In the next few weeks more than a thousand Americans joined British ranks, some coming
from as far away as southern North Carolina. But at Kettle Creek advancing Brits and their
Loyalist allies ran into a rebel force led by South Carolinian Andrew Pickens, and though
outnumbered, the rebels won the day after a tough, two-hour battle. This was the first
setback for the British and marked the beginning of the road to surrender at Yorktown 2 ½
years later.
That “road” led through South Carolina’s “backcountry”, where vicious guerrilla warfare
was the rule of the day. Loyalist fathers told British authorities where to find their own
rebel sons; rebel soldiers refused to give aid to badly wounded Loyalist relatives (one man
coldly told his dying brother-in-law to, “Look to your own friends for help” and walked
away, leaving the man to die) [1]; Loyalist neighbors looted or destroyed rebel neighbors’
homes while they were away and vice versa. Both sides ignored previously heeded “rules
of war”and escalated the brutality of their attacks, hoping to terrorize the other side into
giving up the fight. Though most of the battles lasted only a few minutes, there were
notable exceptions such as Ninety Six, where rebel forces failed to drive British forces
from their fort after a long siege and a massed attack; or Cowpens, where wily Dan
Morgan set a nearly perfect trap for British-Loyalist pursuers and killed or captured nearly all
of the 1200 out to get him and his men. Fighting was so deadly that, in 1780, a full twothirds of all American battle deaths were in South Carolina, and 90% of the wounded went
down in South Carolina combat [2]. Men died of gunshots, cannon blasts and sword slashes;
they also died of heat stroke, exhaustion, starvation and disease.
But it paid off. Nathanial Greene’s small Continental force, augmented by partisan bands
headed by many, many local leaders, continued to confound British attempts to control
Georgia and the Carolinas. British frustration mounted with the number of casualties they
suffered, and though they claimed to be winning they controlled only Charles Town and
Savannah, and little of the rest of the countryside. Rebel partisans won 31 of 35 battles
against the British in South Carolina, and inflicted three times as many casualties as they
took from the enemy [3]. Huck’s Defeat, King’s Mountain, the Cowpens, Camden,
Thicketty Fort, Musgrove’s Mill, Guilford Courthouse; William Washington, Nathanael
Greene, Daniel Morgan - these are places and names that now are all but forgotten. But they
should be as familiar to us as those of George Washington and Yorktown.
This is your chance to investigate that part of the story. Over the course of the next few
days you’ll look into one of the battles of that part of the war, or check into the role played
by one of the heroes who helped corner the British at Yorktown in 1781. Sit tight! Your
teacher has the details for you now!
[1] “Brother Against Brother”.Cowpens National Battlefield Curriculum Guide.
[2] Edgar, Walter. Partisans and Redcoats: The Southern Conflict That Turned the
Tide of the American Revolution. New York: Perennial, 2001, p. 137.
[3] Edgar, p. 143.